There are few films this awards season — or even over the past year — that will make you feel more like you’ve consumed a rich, satisfying novel than Kenneth Lonergan‘s “Manchester By The Sea.” The movie, about a man who is forced to face his troubled past when his brother suddenly passes away, leaving him the legal guardian of his new nephew, is a detailed look at the complexity of familial relationships, and the lingering pain of regret. It’s another example of Lonergan’s astute observation of human behavior, weaved into a wonderfully told tale, making his recent BAFTA Screenwriters’ Lecture a particularly fascinating one.
Running just over an hour long, Lonergan shares his thoughts on the process of writing, the problem of predictability in modern screenwriting, and relates his experience making “Margaret,” noting that “the extended edition…is the only edition that I now will endorse” because it’s “much closer to the movie that I wanted to make.” In case you’re unfamiliar with that saga, after Lonergan had shot the film, the editing process became fraught as he tried to bring the movie in at the contractually obligated running time of 2.5 hours. However, producers soon started meddling, lawsuits were being filed, and three different high profile filmmakers — Sydney Pollack, Anthony Minghella, and Martin Scorsese — were brought in at various points to arbitrate a cut. Eventually, the movie was released theatrically at the aforementioned 2.5 hours, but a persistent campaign by film fans finally saw an extended version released on home video. It’s not exactly a director’s cut, but it’s at least in the neighborhood of what Lonergan was going for.
Below you can find excerpts from the talk, followed by audio of the full conversation on the second page. Please note: the comments about “Margaret” are taken from a few different points throughout the lecture.
“Manchester By The Sea” opens on November 18th.
The profound “meeting of souls” that happens when making a movie
I’m not the first person to make these observations, but James Joyce said famously — and he’s either paraphrasing or translating or interpreting Saint Thomas Aquinas, I don’t remember which — when he’s fairly young, saying that the dramatic art form is the most superior. Because what it does is creates an object, it creates a story or a drama, that is equidistant between the creator’s imagination and the imagination of the audience. Because the experience that you have when you’re working with actors, or other collaborators on any kind of a project — a film or a play — one of the most enjoyable things about it is the combining of imaginations that goes on when you’re working on part of the film.
I’ve had this sensation with most of the actors that I’ve worked with, after the work was done. For instance Anna Paquin in my film ‘Margaret,’ which was a tremendously difficult and demanding role and a big movie to shoot, even though it was on a fairly modest budget. By the end of the 50 days of shooting I felt like we had both been pretending to be the same teenage girl for 50 days. We had been in the same emotional space, in a way, in an extremely intimate way. We’re friendly, but we haven’t stayed friends, but I have a connection to her because we both pretended to be this person as hard as we could and with all the freedom of our imaginations that was available to us. I’ve had that experience with many friends, with Casey Affleck who’s in ‘Manchester,’ we’ve just gone through the same thing. Who is he? What is he doing? Where is he coming from? Why is he behaving this way? How is he reacting? That meeting of souls, in a way – and I use that word loosely – is profound.
“The personal growth required for every major American film from a studio just makes you want to kill yourself.”
One of my other pet peeves is this. This has been going on for 30 years now, but the personal growth required for every major American film from a studio just makes you want to kill yourself. It might have been tolerable when it was a soap opera drama, but now it’s infected all these genres where it doesn’t belong – science fiction movies, fantasy movies. ‘Captain America‘ has to have a moment of personal growth or it’s no good. I don’t know where they get the idea that anybody wants to see this but they cannot shake it. It’s incredible. I want to see Captain America throw his shield and hit people, and maybe get in trouble and get out of it somehow. I’m not interested in his emotional progression. And I don’t think anybody is. But they keep putting it on and on and on. One of my favourite examples of this is — did any of you see those ‘Narnia‘ movies they made, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe‘? Do you know the books, all of you?
Of course you do. Well, I love those books and I detest those movies. Actually The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was ok, but the other two… There’s a moment in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,’ the film, and I don’t like to be publicly critical of other people’s work because I’m not a critic, but this is too much to bear.
Susan and Peter are on an ice flow in a frozen river that’s breaking up. Chunks of ice are going downstream and going over the edge of a waterfall, and on both banks of the river they’re surrounded by wolves – enormous, CGI, double-sized wolves – snarling at them, going to tear them to pieces. And Peter’s got a sword that he was given by Santa Claus, I guess, Father Christmas. It really looks like it’s curtains. He’s standing there and Susan says to him, ‘just because someone gives you a sword doesn’t make you a hero, Peter’. And I thought, ‘you can’t be serious? This is not the time for that kind of discussion’. In fact, it never is.
Why that’s there I don’t know, because nobody wants to see it, nobody wants to write it. I know it’s there because, ‘we really want to see Susan and Peter’s growth in this process, we don’t want to just have a bunch of swords and wolves, who wants to see that?’ well, I do. And also in the books they have perfectly good relationships. When I saw ‘Prince Caspian‘ I knew before I went in there. In the book, I don’t know how well you remember this — I remember it very well — but Prince Caspian and Peter get along just fine right away. Peter’s the high king from the olden days, as far as Caspian’s concerned, and the first scene they have in the book Peter says, ‘I’m not here to replace you, I’m here to help you’. They get along just fine from that point on. And I knew, I knew when I saw the movie there would be a real struggle between Caspian and Peter, really going at it and then getting together. And sure enough, there they are, cursing and yelling at each other, sneering at each other. Who’s going to be the king and so on. You can see it coming a mile away. I don’t know who they’re doing it for. It’s appalling.